Orangutan Outreach Website - Saving the Orangutan

By Jonathan Wootliff

Less than two years ago few people knew about biofuels. Today, Indonesians are struggling to cope with the escalating costs of daily essentials, like rice, as the amount of agricultural land being used to produce this new source of energy increases.

A combination of skyrocketing oil prices and the need to find alternatives to climate changing fossil fuels is driving this new biofuel obsession.

Environmentalists are becoming increasingly worried about the adverse impacts this will have on the country’s rapidly diminishing rainforests.

It’s a cruel irony that biofuels, which were developed as an alternative to greenhouse gas-emitting petroleum, threaten the environment. Experts fear that the attractive revenues derived from biofuels will result in a surge toward the conversion of conservation-rich land.

Land use in Indonesia is already complicated and muddled without this additional burden.

An airplane view of much of Sumatra and Kalimantan shows a scarred and chaotic landscape.

The rate of forest loss is accelerating.

On average, about a million hectares a year were cleared in the 1980s, rising to about 1.7 million hectares per year in the first part of the 1990s.

Since 1996, deforestation appears to have increased to a devastating annual average of two million hectares.

Opportunistic planting of oil palm by misguided farmers on land that cannot sustain the crop often results in vast abandoned areas reminiscent of desserts.

Although outlawed, slash and burn practices continue to cause massive fire destruction, and illegal logging abounds at an alarming pace.

In spite of sound forestry and environmental laws designed to protect high conservation value forest, the habitats of some of the world’s most precious and threatened species are going fast.

According to environmental NGO Greenpeace, the country’s forests are disappearing at the rate of three hundred soccer pitches every hour.

Demands that the government do more to enforce the laws to protect these forests often falls on deaf ears. In spite of the impressive rhetoric from the forestry minister and other officials, the destruction marches on.

No sensible environmentalist is campaigning for Indonesia to be deprived of using forest and other land for economic development. Millions of people depend on it for their survival. But it has to be managed. That’s what sustainable development is all about.

Degraded forests provide ideal land for agricultural use, and there is plenty forest with limited conservation value suitable for development.

Land needs to be strictly delineated so that environmentally important areas are protected. Until this is done, the use of land for the growing of biofuels must be regarded with great caution.

We simply cannot allow the biofuel lobby to argue that its products will help us to combat climate change, when their crops are devastating Indonesia’s remaining ecologically sensitive places.

Land used for biofuel is displacing traditional crops, thus driving up food prices. And land use for biofuel crops is increasing the destruction of the nation’s rainforests.

Farmers must be discouraged from the allure of attractive revenues derived from growing biofuels. Short-term financial gains will lead to longer-term economic woes.

Contrary to what the exponents of biofuel are saying, this is clearly not a panacea for climate change or rising fuel costs.

There is surely a strong enough case here for the government to sharpen its focus on the biofuel challenge and enforce environmental law.

This is urgent and must be done in the interests of both Indonesia’s environmental and food security.

Source: The Jakarta Post

By Rob Shumaker of The Great Ape Trust

As you have certainly heard, Iowa is experiencing the worst flooding in recorded history - far worse than the massive flooding of 1993. The media is starting to compare this to Katrina. Entire towns, both big and small, may be completely lost. The damage to the state is staggering. Great Ape Trust has also been severely affected, but the orangutans, bonobos, and staff are all perfectly fine.

We started to have some minor flooding on our campus a week ago Monday. It rapidly accelerated, and we only had about 2 hours warning on Tues morning of the severity that was approaching. Our offices were evacuated, and everything except was furniture was removed. Trucks were being loaded as the axles were becoming submerged. All of the offices were completely destroyed. Our personal belongings (books, documents, data, etc.) and organizational records are safely stored, but not readily available at the moment.

By last Tues night, our entire 240 acres (except the ape buildings) were basically under water at varying depths. The water continued to rise over the next several days. All of our ape buildings were built higher than the 1993 flood levels, and we had contingency plans in place for this type of emergency. Most importantly, both buildings (especially the orangutan building) have significant vertical space. By late in the week, water was surrounding the ape homes and approaching the doors. It slowly trickled in once the height exceeded our sandbags. As the water levels in Des Moines rose, we had to aggressively manage the water in the buildings by pumping. Our construction managers advised us to keep about 6″-8″ inside the buildings to equalize the pressure on the inside with the outside of the buildings. We did that successfully until the river crested, and we then dealt with about 2′ of water inside the buildings for several hours.

After the crest the water started to subside, and we had dry floors in our ape buildings by Sunday night. By Monday afternoon, the buildings were completely cleaned and disinfected. Yesteray and today, life was basically normal for the apes, except for no electricity (we hope to have that back in a few days).

As you might predict, the orangutans were very sensible about the whole event. They moved to the upper 75% of the building, and watched us scurry around with pumps and hoses below. The boats outside appeared to be especially interesting for them. Despite the severity of the flooding, our ape buildings were only involved for about 2 days. During that time, the orangutans remained 100% dry, and had normal care (so did the bonobos). They missed some sleep since we were all working around the clock until the crisis was over. The orangutans showed absolutely no interest in getting anywhere near the water, and happily made their night nests about 25 feel off the floor. All of the bonobos were also very calm, and have come through the excitement perfectly fine.

The staff at the Trust has been nothing less than heroic. Words cannot describe their level of dedication and amazingly upbeat attitudes. The worst of this is far behind us at this point. We also received calls from Dan Cassidy at Omaha and the folks at Blank Park Zoo. Both institutions were ready to provide any assistance we required at a moment’s notice. They have been fantastic and highly valued colleagues. Luckily, we never reached the point of needing their assistance, but it was great to know that we could count on them.

Cleanup of our campus continues, but life for the apes is great. We face some significant challenges rebuilding our offices and planning for the future, but our entire staff is incredibly enthusiastic and optimistic. We are also very tired and looking forward to getting some well deserved rest over the next few days.

You can see photos and video on The Great Ape Trust’s website.

Belinda Lopez, The Jakarta Post, Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan

Taking a step into the tropical peat swamp of Central Kalimantan can be a dangerous affair. A firm surface is never guaranteed, and losing your boots in the quicksand-like mud is inevitable — but the least of your concerns.

There are snakes, spiders and a particularly nasty variety of ant that proved itself talented at getting into one’s pants for a salutary welcome bite. Stories of orangutans and hikers will be left to the reader’s imagination.

But the alternative to such a thriving forest is a desert-like field of peat, the extinction of Indonesia’s array of wildlife and fires that make the country the third highest carbon producer in the world. This too can be found in Central Kalimantan.

It’s a situation Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono appear to want to halt. A new agreement signed by the pair last week aims to preserve the forests, and possibly make Indonesia a lot of money in the process.

As part of the Forest Carbon Partnership, signed on June 13 during Rudd’s visit to Jakarta, 30 million Australian dollars (US$28.6 million) will be dropped into the forests of Central Kalimantan. It will be used to try and do what has never been done before — to put a money value on the carbon that has been saved by avoiding deforestation, said development economist and advisor to the ASEAN Centre for Energy, Terry Lacey.

The first Kyoto Protocol narrowly focuses on industrial gas emissions that tend to come from wealthier industrialized countries, while neglecting those caused by forest degradation — which often occurs in countries under transition, like Indonesia, he said.

But the Kalimantan project could be the first step toward a fairer system of combating climate change. It aims to measure the amount of carbon stored in forests using new technology developed in Australia, which is now considered “best practice” by international standards, according to Prime Minister Rudd.

Until now, measuring the amount of carbon in forests has been a rather rudimentary practice, despite deforestation accounting for 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. But once the amount of carbon in Kalimantan is measured, it could be tendered on the emerging carbon market, Lacey said.

It means Indonesia stands to potentially raise a lot of money by preserving its forests; that is if its most permeating problems — corruption and bureaucratic incompetence — do not get in the way.

When former president Suharto’s government cleared the middle of Kalimantan in 1996 for the Mega Rice Project, it overlooked a minor, but crucial, detail — that peat is too acidic for rice to grow in. By then a million hectares of forest had been culled and 4,600 kilometers of wide canals built.

What was left after the canals drained the water from the formerly boggy rainforest was a desert-like layer of highly flammable peat as topsoil. The next year fires raged through the former forests, contributing to between 15 to 40 percent of 1997’s global CO2 emissions, Wetlands International found.

Residents in the Central Kalimantan town of Palangkaraya still endure the consequences of annual fires. For three months of the year, smoke encases the town like a bitter fog.

“Nobody goes outside, nobody goes anywhere”, residents say of the “smoke months”, again and again. Life stops, as peat burns for meters underground.

The University of Palangkaraya’s Dr Suwido Limin was among the scientists who watched in horror as Suharto set about destroying forest to plant rice that was never going to grow.

A weathered environmental warrior for the university’s Center for International Co-operation in Sustainable Management of Tropical Peatland, Suwido, is very familiar with the paradox of forest preservation, Indonesian-style.

He believes things are “getting worse”. Regulations that forbid timber, oil, palm and pulp (acacia) plantations from over-clearing might exist on paper, but the hundreds of companies working there are all guilty of ignoring them, he said.

The problem is only made worse by small groups of Indonesians from outside Kalimantan coming in to carry out illegal logging and trafficking of orangutans and other wildlife.

The big, gaping canals dug in to drain the muddy forest to grow rice have since been blocked up to allow the forest to regenerate, but illegal loggers regularly break the dams in order to float boats down the artificial rivers, leaving the peat to dry out and burn once again.

A fiercely proud Dayak, Suwido’s own approach to forest preservation has been firmly grassroots. He has implemented a program where local families are paid for the amount of trees they regenerate over 10, 20, 30 years — helping people living near the forest make a living from it without destroying it.

But Suwido said the Indonesian government — on a local, regional and national level — was not listening.

“Their mentality is more difficult to change; we need to find a new strategy, new people and a new generation. If they put new people in the government, in the parliament, in the local offices, it would help. People have been there too long.”

A staff member of the Australian government department AusAID, which will partly manage the Kalimantan project, said the way to avoid corruption was “through transparency and openness in the way we manage projects and do business”.

The staff member was able to speak with The Jakarta Post on the condition of anonymity, as per department “practice”.

He said a draft local anti-corruption for development plan for 2008- 2013 is scheduled to be made public in July to guide future projects like Kalimantan, which will be subject to independent financial and quality auditing.

“We will look at the quality of all projects. The money trail may look fine but quality can be a let down.”

AusAID prefers to engage with local governments and communities in its development projects, rather than solely using Australian or international organizations to get the job done, he said.

“You do come face to face with issues of corruption, but isolating yourself from it is not the way to help change things … for local development and the local community.”

Source: The Jakarta Post

Rizal Harahap , The Jakarta Post , Pekanbaru

Sumatra — Conservationists in Riau on Friday hailed the decision made by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to name three former heads of the Riau Forestry Office and a regent as graft suspects.

The Riau Forest Savior working network coordinator, Haryansyah, said Riau had waited long enough for the decision as Pelalawan Regent Azmun Jaafar had already stated the suspects played a role in the issuance of illegitimate permits.

Haryansyah urged the KPK to immediately arrest the three suspects to restore the public’s trust in the law and justice. The arrests should be made to erase the image that law enforcers prosecute commoners, but not state officials, he said.

“Not only Azmun but everyone must be treated equally. Arrests are needed to accelerate the legal process,” Haryansyah told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

He urged the KPK to immediately name a number of officials as suspects involved in the issuance of forestry permits in Riau.

Based on investigations conducted by the working network, he said, some 36 companies operating in Indragiri Hulu, Indragiri Hilir, Kampar, Siak and Pelalawan regencies had received commercial forest permits from the regent since 2002, despite the passing of a forestry law revoking the regent’s authority to issue the permits as of September 2002.

“A lot of people are allegedly involved in issuing illegal forestry permit, from regents to ministers. If a permit is dubious, it could set off a chain reaction because procedurally it is an inseparable entity,” Haryansyah said.

“Forestry office heads, governors and ministers must be held responsible and treated fairly by the KPK. Even if corruption is not involved, the official is wrong for keeping quiet about the crime,” he said.

Companies benefiting from ill-gotten timber derived from illegal permits, said Haryansyah, must also be implicated. “KPK must investigate those taking advantage of the crime. We are ready to provide information and hand over evidence that we possess on forestry crimes,” he said.

The three former forestry office heads who have been named as suspects in the Azmun case were identified as Syuhada Tasman, who led the office from 2003-2004, Asral Rachman (2004-2005) and Burhanuddin Husein (2005-2006).

KPK believes the three suspects were responsible for devising working plans for 15 logging permits issued by Azmun in Pelalawan from 2001 to 2006.

They are still on duty. Syuhada, who is the former Riau Plantation Office head, currently works for the Riau Research and Development Agency, Asral is Riau Manpower Office head, and Burhanuddin is Kampar regent.

Since KPK released his current suspect status, Burhanuddin rarely makes public appearances.

Asral and Syuhada were not available at their respective offices. According to unnamed sources at the Riau Manpower Office and Riau Research and Development Agency, both men are out of town on official visits.

Riau Governor Rusli Zainal declined to comment on the suspect status of the three former high-ranking officials.

Straits Times Forum 21 Jun 08

WE REFER to yesterday’s online letter by Mr Chang Qizhong on putting orang utans on the Singapore Flyer. We would sincerely like to thank Mr Chang for his feedback, and understand and appreciate his interest.

The objective of having the orang utans in the Flyer was to highlight to a wider audience the plight of orang utans and the destruction of their rainforest habitat. By doing this, we were able to disseminate the conservation message to people who may not have been aware of this very serious issue.

Broadcasting the conservation message through the juxtaposition of the orang utans against the backdrop of the city skyline serves to remind urban planners, developers and plantation owners that the orang utan habitats are fragile areas and, once destroyed, almost impossible to replace.

The fact is, there is already not much natural setting left for them, and the rate with which we are losing these green spaces is decreasing at an alarming rate. We would like to assure Mr Chang that at no time were the orang utans exposed to a highly unnatural and stressful situation.

The team from Singapore Zoo visited the Singapore Flyer on several occasions to understand how the orang utans would react to the environment and whether they would be comfortable with the new location. During the trips, the orang utans were accompanied by their curators and keepers who have cared for them since birth. They were comfortable and enjoying their rambutans and other fruits in the capsule. Please be assured that Chomel and Merlin were completely relaxed and Merlin, especially, proceeded to do what he does most of the time - eat.

Our collaboration with Singapore Flyer during the June holidays is significant as this will help widen our reach to people who may not realise the significance of maintaining the biodiversity of the region.

Apart from this foray beyond the boundaries of the Singapore Zoo, Chomel and Merlin live in one of the best natural habitats for captive orang utans within the zoological world.

We are convinced that the conservation and public awareness messages conveyed through the various media reports have helped to raise the awareness on the plight of the orang utans. Orang utans are endangered and, if we do not act quickly and make informed decisions regarding how we manage their habitats and their survival, we may only see them in zoos, books or media reports in the near future.

To date, the Singapore Zoo has undertaken orang utan conservation efforts within and out of their natural habitats. Apart from a good track record of breeding 34 of these charismatic animals in captivity, the zoo also contributed veterinary supplies to the Nyaru Menteng Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre in Kalimantan in 2005. The centre’s focus is to rescue illegally-kept orang utans and rehabilitate them for eventual release into designated rainforests.

Our educational outreach programmes are not only limited to the zoo. We also have ‘Zoo Goes to School’ programmes which involves visits to educational institutions. This year, the zoo has pledged monetary contribution towards helping orang utans in the wild in both in Sumatra and Borneo.

With regards to photography, the orang utans were not at the Singapore Flyer for a photography session with visitors. Photographs taken by members of the public at that time were purely opportunistic. At no time were these members of the public allowed to come into close contact with, or to touch, the orang utans. We would like to reassure Mr Chang that we have always been aware of such issues even within our zoo setting.

Our experience has shown that once people make a connection with an animal through a real-life encounter or by capturing a special moment in a photograph, their perception and interest in doing more for that particular animal, either through active conservation or making informed decisions, is further heightened.

Singapore Zoo recognises that there are institutions and individuals who will employ animals for commercial purposes at the expense of the animals’ welfare. This is not what we do at Singapore Zoo. Our token feeding sessions are not forced activities, neither are they dedicated photography sessions. Rather, the sessions are accompanied by live commentary, and the orang utans are given the choice to join in if they so please.

Once again, we would like to thank Mr Chang for his letter.

Biswajit Guha
Assistant Director, Zoology
Singapore Zoo

Source: http://wildsingaporenews.blogspot.com/2008/06/orang-utans-at-singapore-flyer-zoo.html

Letter from Chang Qizhong, Straits Times Forum 20 Jun 08;

I WAS disturbed to read that two young orang utans were recently subjected to a trip on the Singapore Flyer, ‘Orangutans fly the primate cause‘ (June 13).

While it is undoubtedly critically important to raise awareness on the plight of wild orang utans, this can be achieved in other ways that do not put wild animals in highly unnatural and potentially very stressful situations in the busy city centre.

Humanising animals in this way is simply counter-productive, undermining their status as wild animals, and only serves to reinforce the dangerous idea of humans having control over wild animals.

In addition, it was shocking to read that members of the public were allowed to take photos with the orang utans. Making wild animals come into close contact with humans, especially strangers, is highly unnatural and can undoubtedly be very stressful, especially for young animals.

Furthermore, if such ‘photo opportunities’ with wild animals are seen to be acceptable, then people are likely to also think it is acceptable to take photos with wild animals in other situations, for example on the beaches and bars at holiday resorts.

It is well known that animals used as ‘photo props’ in holiday resorts are commonly mistreated and usually poached from the wild as babies. It should be noted that many baby orang utans are poached from the wild specifically to be used as ‘photo props’, and therefore we should be doing all we can to discourage people from taking their photos with wild animals, in any circumstance. Any use of wild animals as ‘photo opportunities’ simply fuels the idea that it is desirable to take one’s picture with a wild animal.

The Singapore Zoo, as a generally well-respected establishment, should be more careful about the activities it promotes and the message it is sending out.

Source: http://wildsingaporenews.blogspot.com/2008/06/putting-orang-utans-on-singapore-flyer.html

“Palm Reading” (Dec. 6) detailed a Honolulu meeting with members of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council and their claims that everything about their industry is cool. No pollution, illegal logging, slash and burn clearing or displacement of indigenous forest people or endangered species. OK, but aren’t you PAID to say all of that, and what about the satellite photos showing hundreds of fires?

The cover story “Deadly Price” (Apr. 3) told the rest of the story on the Southeast Asian palm oil industry and Hawaiian Electric’s (HECO) misguided plans to import huge quantities to provide our local electricity (at the expense of increasing pressures on the region’s remaining rainforests and its unique and threatened creatures, such as the orangutan and Sumatran tiger).

Imperium Renewables, which pitched a 100 million gallon/year refinery to fuel a yet-to-be built 110 megawatt generating plant at Campbell Industrial Park on Oahu, cancelled an initial public offering of stock, in part due to rising prices of vegetable oils, including soy and palm. Their plans to build on Oahu are now uncertain at best.

Nine months after announcing they had agreed to prepare a “voluntary EIS,” no such environmental study has been issued by BlueEarth Biofuels, which had proposed partnering with Maui Electric (MECO) to build a biodiesel refinery with 120 million gallon/year capacity.

Last Sunday, the Honolulu Advertiser ran a feature story on ventures in Hawaii to research converting algae to biodiesel fuel. The story mentioned that BlueEarth was partnering with HECO “for an $81 million facility capable of producing 30 million gallons of biodiesel that will be used by Maui Electric Co.” Oddly, that’s a $20 million increase on the price tag–and a 90 million gallon reduction in yearly output of fuel–from what had previously been announced,

In any case, Pacific Biodiesel is still the only company producing biodiesel in Hawaii, and all of it is derived from waste cooking oils. Any biodiesel produced from Hawaii field crops or primordial pond scum is still years away. As it has often been stated, importing yet another fuel does nothing for our energy security or self-sufficiency.

This year’s amazing version of the Maui Film Festival ran entirely on energy produced from solar panels. I know what you’re thinking: how’d they pull that off with the movies shown outdoors at night. I’ll leave that question to the experts.

33 year old filmmaker Josh Tickell screened his opus, Fields of Fuel to an enthusiastically receptive audience on Sunday evening at the Skydome Theater atop the roof of the Wailea Marriott hotel. Tickell’s fast-paced, highly informative film chronicles his eleven year quest to learn about biofuels, to expose the powerful and toxic grasp of the petro-chemical industry and to lead the charge for self-sufficient communities, that run on vegetable oils and biomass, not fossil fuels.

Tickell toured the country in his colorful Veggie Van interviewing, filming and learning everywhere he traveled. There is fascinating footage of the historical roots of diesel engines as well as the auto industry. His fabulous integration of appropriate soundtrack choices makes the film a compelling music video tour de force, perhaps unsurpassed in the documentary genre.

Tickell’s vision is biodiesel representing a shift in power from corporations back to individuals. One of the film’s most poignant quotes was Senator Barabara Boxer stating, “This has become a government run by oil companies.”

Tickell said the transition needed is not so much in technology, but in political power. This harkens to McKibben’s MCC talk in April, when he said, “There’s no shortage of technology or engineers. What we lack is political will.”

Fields of Fuel will be released on DVD and to classrooms and theaters this coming fall. Don’t miss it. MTW

http://www.mauitime.com/Articles-i-2008-06-19-180513.112113_Rehash_Revisit_Recycle.html

Soon Li Tsin
Malaysiakini.com

MALAYSIA — Ten Kenyah natives have arrest warrants out for them from the Miri Magistrates Court for blockading Samling timber company from logging their communal lands in the remote Baram region of Sarawak.

Borneo Resources Institute Malaysia (Brimas) programme director Raymond Abin when contacted said he was unable to confirm any arrests, although the police in Marudi have been ordered to the blockade site.

“The protests are still taking place but I haven’t been able to contact them to see if any arrests have taken place,” he told Malaysiakini.

On May 19, indigenous Kenyahs from six longhouse communities - Long Moh, Long Je’eh, Long Bela’ong, Long Sawan, Long Silat and Long Mekabar - gathered at upper Sungai Moh to stage a non-violent protest against logging operations by Samling.

They’ve erected wooden barricades on the major logging roads used by Samling to carry out its logging activities within the communal lands and forest area where the Kenyahs of Kedaya Telang Usan in Baram inhabit.

The blockade - located about 300km southeast of Miri - aimed to discontinue timber extraction and transportation from their forest areas in the upper Sungai Sebua, Sungai Jekitan and Sungai Moh area.

According to Abin, Samling’s logging activities - legal and also purportedly illegal ones - have temporarily ceased for the last three weeks since the blockade was erected.

“Hundreds of timber logs that had been felled are stacked up along the sides of the logging road.

“The Kenyahs have stopped all the logging trucks and other logging machineries from entering and transporting timbers from the area,” he said in a statement.

Raymond indicated that the natives have written to the Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) requesting for an urgent physical inspection of all logs felled by Samling and want them to disallow further logging until the inspection was completed.

Fallen on deaf ears

He pointed out that the indigenous people have severely suffered the environmental impacts of logging activities ever since Samling started its logging operations in upper Baram area.

The company simply encroached into their communal land and forest areas to carry out logging activities, without any consultation and consideration for their source of livelihood.

“They resorted to this action after the company continued to ignore their demands and rights of access and benefits to their natural forest resources.

“Their numerous complaints to the authorities and the logging companies regarding their claims to the forest resources and the problems caused by logging have fallen on deaf ears,” he stated.

Billionaire owners

Abin said the Kenyah’s blockade was their way of getting company representatives and the government authorities to dialogue with them about the matter.

On May 29, SFC personnel attempted unsuccessfully to remove the wooden barricades after receiving complaints from Samling.

The SFC in response filed an action under the Sarawak Forestry Ordinance and arrest warrants were issued by the magistrate court.

The Samling group of companies and its subsidiary, Samling Strategic Corporation Sdn Bhd, control around 1.5 million hectares of forests in the state of Sarawak.

According to Forbes magazine in 1995, the Samling group controlled by Yaw Teck Seng and his family has a net worth estimated at US$1.6 billion.

Some securities analysts view the logging giant as the country’s largest and most aggressive fully integrated timber group.

By SARINA TALIP

Independent Australian producers Cathy Henkel and Jeff Canin maxed out seven credit cards to make their latest documentary The Burning Season.

The film centres on, about the deliberately lit fires that rage across Indonesia every year to clear land for crops.

The ABC, BBC and US network CBS had all pre-bought the film and the Hatchling Productions pair had also managed to secure funding from Australian film funding bodies as well as distribution through National Geographic.

But filming began in March last year while and the cash flow didn’t come through until December, when Henkel and Canin were at the Bali climate change Kyoto Summit and most of the filming had already finished.

“It’s quite a complex deal and it probably took all of last year to put together. However, the story began and I just had to go,” Henkel said.

“So it’s tricky and it’s a lot of risk that the independent producer has to take but we managed to do it and it’s now fully financed and this is not unusual.”

Life in the documentary business is tough but Henkel believes life without documentary would be a poorer place.

She and Canin were in Canberra this week on Monday to meet with politicians, including Greens senator Bob Brown and Environment Minister Peter Garrett, for a special screening of the film.

Henkel said she hoped the screening would emphasise the importance of documentary film in Australia.

“[With the formation] of the new agency Screen Australia we just want to ensure that documentary has a high profile and is recognised for its importance. Of course we need Australian documentary for our culture but we are also arguing that we have an innovative, growing viable business,” Henkel said.

The Burning Season tells the story of three people from different worlds, whose lives intersect in the lead-up to another burning season young Australian entrepreneur Dorjee Sun who wants to establish a cutting-edge carbon trading scheme that effectively re-values forests; an Indonesian farmer Achmadi who burns trees to clear land for growing palm oil; and Danish expatriate Lone Droscher Nielsen who cares for over 600 injured and orphaned orangutans.

“This is a character-based story so we’re following three characters and their journeys through last year the various struggles, obstacles and issues that they encountered. It’s not issue-based as such but the issues emerge from the characters,” Henkel said.

“It’s very fast-paced and a bit of a thriller: you don’t know what’s going to happen next. We also have Hugh Jackman narrating the film and that’s because we wanted a storyteller who would get across some of the tough concepts that people need to understand. They need to understand what Dorjee’s trying to do and they also need to know the global facts, such as 20 per cent of climate change comes from deforestation.”

She said it wasn’t a documentary in the style of Michael Moore.

“It’s not a polemic and it’s not propaganda either. It is a story but it asks the questions of the audience: Do you think carbon trading could save the forests of the world? Do you think Dorjee’s onto something? Is he a pioneer of something that could be replicated around the world or do you just think he’s a profiteer?”

She said documentary had the power to change people’s opinions.

“I can only speak for myself but my life has been changed by seeing documentary films and my attitudes are frequently changed by seeing films. So I do believe that they do change attitudes and that’s clearly why we do it. We hope that people will at least think about and discuss important issues that we raise. If it changes even one person, you’ve made an impact.”

Learn all about The Burning Season

In 1978, Jack Westoby – already a legendary figure in international forestry having retired after 25 years at the FAO – challenged participants in the World Forestry Congress in Jakarta to make forest management serve the needs of local people. Thirty years later, how have we done?

Not very well at all, according to a new article by Anne Larson and Jesse Ribot. In “The poverty of forestry policy: double standards on an uneven playing field”, they detail how forest policies continue to privilege the extractive interests of richer and more powerful urban elites. Such bias perpetuates poverty and exclusion in rural communities that might otherwise benefit from meaningful participation in forest management.

National forest law and policy often embody double standards, imposing additional burdens on local communities or granting special privileges to commercial actors. Prior to the enactment of a new forestry law in Honduras, outdated legislation precluded the granting of title over most forestland. Regulations limited community rights to “traditional uses”, while permitting forestry authorities to grant logging rights over those same forests to third parties.

In other countries, the law is fair on paper, but not in practice. In Senegal, progressive decentralization laws in the late 1990s gave local governments the right to manage forests within their jurisdictions. But almost ten years later, the old system of granting permits for charcoal exploitation through a centrally-managed quota system persists virtually unchanged. The new Honduran law, passed after this article was published, is now raising similar concerns regarding implementation.

In both countries, attempts to tilt the playing field toward local communities have had perverse consequences. A Social Forestry System, set up in Honduras to encourage access to forests by peasant and indigenous cooperatives, has been co-opted by large-scale timber interests operating in collusion with forestry authorities. In Senegal, donor-supported projects to demonstrate application of progressive laws have provided an excuse for the Forest Service to delay their implementation more generally.

Analysis by Larson and Ribot is a timely reminder that improving forest governance is not just about reforming the formal laws and regulations that ostensibly set the rules of the game. It’s also about reforming the many formal and informal institutions that determine what happens in the day-to-day interpretation and implementation of those rules.

The authors stress that while strengthening local rights to forest resources may be necessary, such rights are by no means sufficient to guarantee actual changes in community access. Structures of political power, markets, and information all conspire to reinforce local disadvantage. In particular, “rules are only applied to those too weak to circumvent them: the poor rural majority”. More radical changes are needed to tilt the playing field decisively in their favor.

And now a word about CIFOR…

Larson and Ribot suggest that “good analysis” can help rural communities and their advocates leverage change, and CIFOR aspires to be a leading provider of just such analysis. CIFOR’s Strategy 2008-2018: Making a Difference for Forests and People, the product of many external consultations and internal debates over the last 18 months, was approved by our Board of Trustees in May. Please check it out at http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/publications/pdf_files/Books/CIFORStrategy0801.pdf and let us know your comments and ideas on how we can collaborate to achieve common objectives.

Anne M. Larson and Jesse C. Ribot. 2007. The poverty of forestry policy: double standards on an uneven playing field. Sustainability Science, Volume 2, Number 2 / October, 2007. The article is available at http://pdf.wri.org/sustainability_science_poverty_of_forestry_policy.pdf

The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) established the (CIFOR-POLEX) electronic listserver in July 1997 as a free information service to the global forest community. Previous CIFOR POLEX messages can be found at the CIFOR website http://www.cifor.cgiar.org